On the morning of March 5, 2025, Air India flight AI 126 took off from Chicago for a 14-hour non-stop journey to Delhi. Over 300 passengers were on board, and the aircraft had twelve toilets. However, as the flight progressed, one by one, each toilet became clogged.
Four and a half hours later, somewhere over Greenland, eleven of the twelve toilets were completely unusable, leaving only one functioning toilet in business class. Faced with this crisis, the crew made the decision to turn the plane around. After ten hours in the air, the flight landed back in Chicago—without reaching its destination.
What followed was chaos. Hundreds of passengers had to be accommodated, rerouted, or refunded. However, there simply weren’t enough Air India staff members to assist them. Delta Airlines employees reportedly stepped in out of sympathy to help manage the situation. Passengers—many of whom had paid lakhs for a non-stop flight to save time—were left stranded, missing weddings, business meetings, and other important commitments.
The state of the aircraft’s toilets was so bad that it took two days to restore the plane to operational condition. According to Air India, polythene bags, rags, and clothes were found flushed down the toilets, causing a major plumbing failure. The airline further stated that on previous flights, blankets, underwear, and diapers had been flushed by passengers, leading to similar issues.
This incident wasn’t even an isolated case of Air India’s mismanagement. Just a few weeks prior, Union Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan—known for his calm demeanor—vented his frustration on social media about a terrible experience on an Air India flight. Other similar complaints have surfaced in recent months, reinforcing the airline’s reputation for mediocrity.
What’s going on? Air India was supposed to have been fixed, isn’t it? The entire problem lay in Air India being a PSU right? After all, Air India now private, and owned by the Tata group, no less. It is the same group that runs the Taj Mahal hotel in Mumbai, Taj Lake Palace in Udaipur, the Taj Mansingh in New Delhi, The Pierre in New York and dozens of Taj properties globally. These aren’t just some of the best in hotels in India, but also the world.
If Tata can manage these world-class hospitality experiences, why can’t it run a top-tier airline?
Adding to the disappointment, Air India recently merged with Vistara—which was actually one of India’s better-run airlines. The hope was that Air India would be transformed into something like Vistara. Instead, the opposite happened: Vistara has been swallowed up, and its standards have now sunk to Air India’s level.
We are told to be patient—that decades of PSU inefficiency cannot be undone overnight. Fine. But should we really accept a situation so bad that an entire flight has to turn around because of clogged toilets? Are we supposed to keep quiet and say, “Shh, Air India is healing”?
Even IndiGo, India’s market leader, has seen a rise in customer complaints. However, at least IndiGo never claimed to be a luxury airline. It’s a low-cost carrier, and as long as you pre-order your sandwich before takeoff, you know exactly what to expect.
The same applies to SpiceJet, Akasa, and other Indian airlines. They operate on a no-frills model—getting you from Point A to Point B, nothing more. They never promised a world-class experience, and they never claimed to be luxurious.
The big question for us is this. Do we not deserve a great airline? Does a nation of 1.4billion people, with a multi-trillion dollar economy, with millions of people who speak English, with many excellent world-class service and hospitality brands, with millions of affluent diaspora who live abroad, with aspirations to be one of the leading nations in the world – is that nation not capable of or deserving of a superb, top-5 airline in the world?
So why can’t we have one world-class airline?
Tiny city-states like Singapore have Singapore Airlines, which is consistently ranked among the top five airlines in the world. Even smaller Gulf nations have built Emirates, Qatar Airways, and Etihad—all offering luxury, reliability, and global prestige.
Meanwhile, Indian airlines often feature on “Top 5 Airlines to Avoid” lists.
Why?
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We can get into the reasons. The taxation is too high, the regulations are onerous, the aircrafts are old but nobody wants to invest big money in airlines given past failures, the airports are not at a level to support a global leader airline, etc etc. These are all valid reasons. Maybe we can add one more. Many Indians have no civic or common sense, no matter how rich they get. It takes a certain kind to try and flush their underwear down a tiny airline toilet, but somehow those kinds are often found in our great nation. We believe in looking out for ourselves, let the rest of the world be damned. I flushed my underwear or diaper down, who cares if the toilet will get blocked and a chain of terrible events will follow?
And yet, all these above reasons are solvable. Running an airline is no longer a particularly high tech endeavor. Providing world-class luxury and service is not alien to us, we do it in our top hotels.
First, the government does have a big role to play, not in actually running an airline, but in creating enabling conditions to ensure a world-class airline can prosper. Many countries have no tax on ATF. The revenue forgone from ATF taxes is nothing compared to the benefits of having a top global airline (and avoiding the terrible PR of having a bad one). Regulations need to luxury-and-quality friendly. This whole idea of viewing luxury as a sin is very 1980s-Indian-babu mentality, which sadly still exists in pockets. This has also meant we cannot have something really nice and world-class at home.
Second, some operator must take the risk and make a great airline. Someone who can make it all work, without getting distracted or interested in siphoning funds or doing all kinds of random distracting activities. Yes, we have had many Indian airlines fail. However, there has to be room for at least one great Indian airline.
Third, we Indians have to really care about Indian assets, even if they are not personally your own. We have to stop clogging toilets, spitting paan and all the gross Indian things some of us continue to do. We also have to care more about quality and cleaniness. This chalta-hai attitude has led to the acceptance of mediocrity, which now seeps in many aspects of Indian life.
A world-class airline would elevate India’s image on the global stage. It’s not impossible—we have the resources, the talent, and the market size to make it happen.
It’s time we prioritize this and ensure that India’s place in the skies is as high as its ambitions on the ground.